ABSTRACT

This study was carried out to investigate parenting styles as correlate of academic self-efficacy beliefs among secondary school students in Zone B Senatorial District of Benue state. The study was guided by five purposes, five research questions and five null hypotheses. The related literature to the study was reviewed under four main headings namely: conceptual framework, theoretical framework, empirical studies and summary of literature review. The study adopted correlational survey research design. The population of this study consisted of all students in secondary schools in Zone-B Senatorial District of Benue state. Available statistics show that there are 84 secondary schools within the area, and the schools have a total population of 65,633 students at the time of this study. A sample of 500 respondents comprising 250 boys and 250 girls in SS3 was used for the study. Multi-stage sampling technique was employed to compose the sample. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire titled ‘‘Questionnaire on Parenting Styles and Students’ Academic Self-efficacy Beliefs’’ (QPSSASB). The questionnaire consists of 62 items developed from information obtained from literature review based on the research questions. The drafted instrument was subjected to face validation by two experts in the Department of Educational Foundations, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. They were requested to check clarity and appropriateness of the items with regard to the problem of the study and research questions under investigation. They were expected to make suggestions and corrections. The expert’s suggestions were used to make necessary corrections to produce the final copy of the instrument. In order to ascertain the reliability of the instrument for the study, 20 copies of the instrument was trial tested using twenty respondents (10 boys and 10 girls) from Government Secondary school, Gboko in Gboko Local Government Area of Benue State. The reliability coefficients of 0.70 rwas obtained for authoritarian parenting style, 0.73 for authoritative parenting style, 0.55 for permissive parenting style, 0.81 for uninvolved parenting style and an overall cluster of 0.90 was obtained. The score obtained in students’ academic self-efficacy beliefs scale is 0.69. The researcher adopted face-to-face method of administering the instrument to the respondents which was done during free periods in the schools. The research questions were analyzed using Pearson product moment correlation coefficient while null the hypotheses were tested using regression analysis at 0.05 level of significance. The results of the study revealed among others that: there exist a medium direct positive relationship between authoritarian parenting style and students’ academic self-efficacy beliefs. Result also showed that there exist a medium direct positive relationship between authoritative parenting style and students’ academic self-efficacy beliefs. The implications of the above findings were examined and it was recommended among other things that since authoritative parenting style was shown to have the highest correlation coefficient with students’ academic self-efficacy beliefs, the parents should adhere strictly to applying this parenting styles on their children. This parenting style if properly applied by parents will improve not just the students’ academic self-efficacy but also their academic achievement. The limitations of this study were highlighted and suggestions were made for further studies.